


Close Your Eyes

by EchoEquinox



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-22
Updated: 2019-04-22
Packaged: 2020-01-24 02:28:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,490
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18562090
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EchoEquinox/pseuds/EchoEquinox
Summary: Finally safe, finally back at the Land of Departure, things should finally be getting back to normal....should be.





	Close Your Eyes

**Author's Note:**

> Evidently Earth Day is also Terraqua Day which is really cute so fuck it here's a drabble lol

She still saw… flashes. Any time she would close her eyes, there was a sort of… darkness. Not the darkness of the back of one’s eyelids, an oppressive, creeping darkness. A  familiar darkness that nipped at her fingers, turning them red, black veins running up her arms, bleaching her hair, and her eyes would snap open with a gasp, a bead of sweat rolling down her forehead. 

So she didn’t close her eyes very often. 

The three had returned to the Land of Departure, and things were… quiet. Really, it was business as usual: waking up for breakfast (usually she cooked, but Terra had been trying his hand at it recently to… mixed results), a morning workout, training with Terra and Ven for the majority of the day, downtime, dinner, bed. 

She was good with most of those. She liked to cook; it was distracting, and she was very good at it. There was a fleeting thought as to whether or not Eraqus had been a bit sexist, encouraging her cooking and Terra’s woodworking, but she pushed it from her mind, not wanting to disrespect the dead. She was good at it, and it made Ven and Terra both happy to eat a good meal. Another intrusive thought wondered how long it had been since Terra had eaten anything truly good. Did Xemnas eat well, in the Organization? Did Ansem, Seeker of Darkness need to eat at all? And Ven continued to prove he hadn't eaten anything for the past ten years from his ravenous appetite. 

Workout and training were good as well. Things were… tense, however. Specifically with Terra. Their relationship felt strained, like they were plastering on fake smiles and going through empty platitudes because it was what they were supposed to do. She saw him every day, had full conversations with him, but god, she MISSED him. It just wasn’t the same anymore, and she wasn’t sure if it was herself, or him, a combination of the two or just two souls drifting further apart. It hurt almost worse than the darkness did.

Downtime was… significantly more difficult. Ven picked back up reading. He had so many books, and he’d been asking Riku to bring him even more from Riku’s travels back and forth across the many, many worlds out there. Every few weeks, Riku would come back with a trunk full of books, Ven taking them all, devouring them over the course of a night or two, and then spending the rest of the time picking them apart, word by word, understanding each and every story to its fullest. 

Terra’s downtime was… well, honestly, mostly more training. With dummies, rather than the others, but he retreated into a private training room far off in the castle and she would hear him as she passed by, going from strained, restricted grunts, to screams of fury, to hard sobbing. 

She never entered the room. 

Her downtime was spent wandering, mostly. She’d memorized the castle long before they’d embarked on their journey to fight Xehanort, those years and years ago, but things felt so different now. Their castle had become another, a tomb for Ventus, and then returned but it never felt quite… right. The magic was gone, she knew. There was no deterioration of memories, but it still felt hollow, and empty. She’d never realized how Master Eraqus had filled the space with his presence, commanding tone making them feel as though they had purpose, and goals. Things like the Mark of Mastery to work toward, and beyond that, eventually taking Eraqus’s place at the head of the Land of Departure. 

Nothing mattered now. The place was a fleeting shadow of what it had been during their childhood, before she’d been lost to the darkness, before Terra was possessed, before Ventus fell into his nigh endless sleep. 

She’d cook dinner for the two, all rather sullen at this point, the sun having gone down along with their moods, and then she’d return to wandering. Terra and Ven, she presumed, would continue what they were doing before finally retreating to their room to sleep. 

She didn’t. She  _ couldn’t _ . Sleep meant closing her eyes. Closing her eyes meant the darkness could return. And she could feel it, just beneath her skin, bubbling, roiling, trying to break free and threatening to tear her, her friends, the castle, the WORLDS apart. 

And so she couldn’t sleep. Instead, she wandered. 

This night, her wandering took her in a long, winding circuit of the castle, past familiar rooms over and over, well past midnight. She paused, looking into the library and entering, moving among the bookshelves. It was initially an enormous storage room, she knew. An empty space Eraqus didn’t know what to do with, so he dumped the things he didn’t want into it. But Ven and Terra had cleaned it out, tearing open the curtains and installing a magical light fixture with her help, and Terra had begun to build bookshelves for Ven’s many, many books. It was actually beginning to get cluttered, she realized with a soft smile. 

She ran her fingers over the spines of the books, all sorts of topics from educational to wild flights of fancy, and gasped sharply, Stormfall summoning to her hand as she heard a loud noise. She moved to investigate, pausing and sighing, letting her keyblade dissolve and smiling, moving to the sleeping, snoring boy and resting a hand on his forehead. 

“You fell asleep out here again?” she chuckled softly, brushing the hair from his face. He grunted in his sleep, turning in the wide armchair and she smiled, leaning in and gently scooping him up into her arms like she had done so many times when he’d first arrived. “C’mon, Ven, back to bed.”

“Mmph,” he grunted and she shook her head, making her way back down the halls. It was mostly dark, moving by the moonlight through the open windows, but she could’ve done it with her eyes closed - not that she closed her eyes anymore, not for longer than a blink. 

Finally, she reached his room, nudging the door open with her foot and moving to the bed, setting him down, tucking him in, and leaning down to kiss his forehead softly.

“Sleep tight, Ven,” she smiled, turning to the door and gasping, keyblade appearing in her hand again.

“Hey, it’s me, it’s okay,” Terra chuckled and she sighed, slowly relaxing, hand at her chest. “Can we talk?”

“Sure, of course,” she breathed, taking a few steps before meeting Terra’s eye. “What?”

“Can… we talk without our keyblades?” he chuckled and she blushed, letting it fade away, fist clenched at her side, nodding stiffly and following him out, closing Ven’s door quietly. She didn’t know where they were going, as he led her deeper into the castle, winding through halls and around corners. She knew the  _ castle _ , she just wasn’t sure the  _ destination _ . 

He finally stopped at the door to the training room, entering and leaving it open for her. This was where he spent his time alone. It felt strange, being there, but she carefully made her way through the threshold, following him to a bench at the side of the room. 

It was filled with training dummies, and woodworking equipment, and spare lumber. He was crafty, she knew, but she’d never really put much thought into it. The bookshelves in the library were ornate, finished with a polish - where had he learned to do all of that? 

“Aqua,” he started and she jumped, fists clenching at her side. “You haven’t been sleeping.” 

“What?” she asked, forcing a laugh. “Terra, that’s-”

“Aqua,” he said again, flatly, without humor, and she felt herself tense. “I check in your room every night. You’re still out here.”

“You… check my room?” she asked, voice small. 

“I don’t sleep either,” he replied softly, hanging his head and she frowned. She hadn’t even considered that. Was it the same with him? “I… when I sleep, I see… them. I see Sora, and Donald and Goofy, and I see myself as Ansem, or as Xemnas, fighting them, and trying to… to  _ end _ them.” 

“Terra…” she frowned, resting a hand on his. 

“The things I did?” he said, voice cracking. “The things I THOUGHT, as Xehanort? Or… or, Terranort, I don’t know. It was…” He took in a deep, shuddering breath. “Fuck, Aqua, it was horrible.” She pulled her hand away, unsure of how to respond. Talking about the darkness wasn’t making her feel terrific, and she could feel those pinpricks of pain under her skin again, begging for release. 

“I’m sorry,” she muttered, rubbing her arm. “I don’t… I don’t know what to say.” He looked to her, but she didn’t meet his eyes. What would he see, if she did? Would he see the thing behind them that wanted out, that wanted, even now, to hurt him? To summon her keyblade and ram it into his chest and release his heart so he could be a horrible thing of darkness again, like her? She shuddered hard and he leaned toward her, resting a hand on her knee, warm and calloused, and she flinched. 

“What’s wrong?” he asked, and she laughed suddenly, covering her mouth quickly. 

“I-? What’s wrong with ME?” she balked. “Terra, you just told me about how you’re regretting the destruction of WORLDS, I think what’s wrong with me is… is trivial, compared to that.” He shifted, then shrugged.

“Not to me, Aqua.” She felt a shiver run up her spine and bit her tongue, still refusing to meet his eye. “What you’re feeling matters. Just because you weren’t a horrifying force of darkness like Terranort was, doesn’t mean-”

“I was,” she snapped, a bit harsher than she’d intended. “I-I mean, I-? I… was that. A force of darkness. The other me, the anti-me, the thing that attacked Riku and Sora and Mickey. That thing, that ME, wanted to hurt people. Badly.” 

“Ah,” he frowned, his hand not moving from her knee. 

“And I-?” she started, her voice faltering and she frowned, clearing her throat in an attempt to make it sound more steady. “I, um… it’s… hard. I still think about it.”

“We’re always going to think about it,” he said, voice almost a whisper.

“I still think about  _ her _ . I still… I still see her, when I close my eyes,” she replied, wanting to squeeze her eyes shut in pain, but knowing she’d see those bright yellow irises staring back at her. “Ev… every time I close my eyes, it’s there. The darkness. The other me, trying to pull me back in, pull me under, make me do horrible things again, Terra I don’t want to do that again, I don’t-” She gasped sharply at the feeling of his hands catching hers, where they’d been scratching hard, red lines all along her arms. “I’m-? S-sorry, I-”

“Let’s go back to your room,” he suggested, standing and gently guiding her up.

“I can’t sleep,” she mumbled, his arm around her shoulders as they walked. “I can’t sleep or I close my eyes, and if I do I may hurt you or Ven.” 

“We won’t sleep,” he said softly, “We’ll just talk, somewhere comfy.” 

“Okay,” she whimpered, letting her head fall against his shoulder, feeling his cheek on the top of her head. They made their way through the castle to her room and she crawled up onto the bed, knees tucked up against her chest as Terra sat a few feet away. She paused, looking at him, finally meeting his eyes. Brown, with just the barest hint of orange-yellow at the center. Were hers yellow, too? Or maybe a soft green, blurring with her blue? She hadn’t looked in the mirror since she’d gotten back, she didn’t know. She wasn't sure she wanted to. 

“Do you want to talk about it more?” he asked softly and she frowned, shaking her head and uncurling from her ball, moving across the bed and resting at Terra’s side, letting her head fall to his chest. “This good?”

“Yeah,” she said softly. “Comfy.” 

“Glad you think so,” he chuckled, a hand at her hair, stroking softly. This. She missed  _ this _ . She missed the Terra that cared about her, the Terra that held her and loved her. She didn’t know to what capacity, they’d never really discussed, but it didn’t matter, in the end. Romantic, platonic, whatever - she and Terra loved each other, she knew. It felt good, being with him. “I won’t let anything happen to you, Aqua,” he muttered into her hair and she shivered. “I promise that nothing is going to hurt you. And you aren’t going to hurt anyone else.”

“You don’t know that,” she whispered. 

“I know  _ you _ , Aqua. Beautiful, amazing, talented, STRONG Aqua. I know who you are, in your heart, and I know you’ll never let that darkness hurt someone.” 

“I- I hurt Riku, and Mickey and-”

“Aqua,” he said firmly, pulling away gently and looking her in the eyes, cupping her face with one hand. “I know you. You’re MASTER Aqua. If you’d been trying to hurt them, to end them, like the darkness wanted you to? You would’ve. You’re so, so strong, and capable, and powerful. You held back. You held that THING inside of you back. And you did so good.” 

She let a sob escape, feeling tears on her cheeks. She didn’t know how long she’d been crying. Maybe a while? She wanted to bury her face back into Terra’s chest, but instead her hand moved up to touch his, cupping her cheek. 

“Aqua, you’re…” He frowned and she nodded, leaning in to kiss him, slow and careful, one arm looping around his neck, his hand moving from her face to her neck, cradling her there gently. She cried against his lips, and felt him cry too, soft sobs in her mouth as she pushed harder against him. She loved him, he loved her, she NEEDED him. He grounded her, made her understand that everything was going to be alright again, that she wasn't a monster and neither was he. The threat was over. God, she needed him. 

And as they kissed, her eyes fluttered shut. She panicked, for just a moment, but felt a twinge in her chest. The darkness was there, as it always was, accompanying her - well, probably for the rest of her life. But there was something else, too. 

She broke the kiss slowly, adding a few more light pecks before finally sliding down and resting against his chest, closing her eyes again, the darkness washing in, pushing against her, but feeling something pushing back. The strength of her heart, the light there, strong and resonant, keeping her safe. 

And beside it, Terra’s light. Always there, no matter how far away, holding her hand, keeping her safe, smothering her in love, and companionship, and safety. 

And finally - FINALLY - Aqua fell asleep


End file.
